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Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#281

Post by mikenew »

panarky wrote: post #60
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would suspect that most people who are were already vulnerable have already passed or built immunity if the virus is equally dangerous, resulting in a lower than equal death rate despite equivalent risk. Although... Can we never, not even once, be a little optimistic? To me, the news that we may be replacing COVID with a less severe strain is some of the best news of the year. COVID clearly isn't going away at this…

> a little optimistic? Sure, for this immediate wave [more transmissible less virulent] is better than [more transmissible more virulent]. But that's awfully myopic. What happens after that? Since mutation rate is a function of the number of viral particles, and more transmission means many more hosts incubating many more particles, we should expect to see more new variants, faster. So the probability just went up th…

Covid can't just mutate to become more and more transmissible off to infinity. The likelihood of a new variant being able to out compete Omicron is lower than a variant that can out compete Delta. There's also selection pressure towards milder disease, because someone with milder disease is more likely to be out in the world spreading it than they are to be quarantined at home.

The probability of a more transmissible, more virulent strain just went down, not up. It certainly isn't zero, but "more transmissible less virulent" is exactly how viruses tend to evolve. Mutations are a dice roll and it there's no way to be sure of anything, but being a little optimistic is completely appropriate.

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#282

Post by daxfohl »

cableshaft wrote: post #78
zamfi wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s only one pressure driving viral evolution. Another pressure is social response to infection: so far, the predominant response to a more-virulent or more-lethal strain has been lockdown and/or other behavioral change, see: delta in India. On the flip side, a variant that causes milder symptoms is less likely to cause the same social response, which allows the virus to spread more widely. This may (may!) be what…

I'd say that's normally true, but there's not a ton of lockdowns with even Delta right now, so while I agree that it probably isn't going to get worse , there's still not a ton of pressure from social response as it is right now for it to get milder (maybe you could argue pressure from vaccines I guess).

Yeah I think we can learn what society thinks is acceptable risk just by looking at death counts over the last two years. They've pretty much leveled out. So as the virus mutates into less (or more) harmful variations, we'll see the world react less (or more) strictly, but overall death count will remain stable.

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#283

Post by TAKEMYMONEY »

NoblePublius wrote: post #232

Who cares? If you die with Omicron, you are very old and dying above the average life expectancy, or already sick with chronic preventable illnesses caused by poor lifestyle choices. We should be banning McDonalds advertising, not deputizing waitresses to be vaccination police. If you are not very old or already sick and get omicron, whether you have antibodies or not, you’re going to experience mild symptoms, if any…

> deputizing waitresses to be vaccination police

Oh god, I fled post-the_donald reddit to avoid trite drivel like this. Please don't.

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#284

Post by Aloha »

iso1631 wrote: post #267
sjg007 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of scientific studies showing that masks work.

But do they show how much mask mandates work in the real world, do they explain why Edinburgh and Glasgow are indistingishable from Mancehster and Birmingham in numbers of cases detected?

I think in reality, COVID fatigue has set in, and thats the issue.

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#285

Post by adolph »

mitigating wrote: post #130
sjwalter wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am in no way saying masks don't work, in fact I think that they do. This is still so hilarious to me. It's pretty obvious that some masks work, that is, n95 or whatever actual respirator masks. It's pretty obvious that other masks don't work at all, that is, 99.99% of masks worn by the public at large.

" It's pretty obvious that other masks don't work at all" So a N95 mask works and covering your mouth with a bandana has no effect at all? Not even 10%?

I was putting on two N95s until someone said three was three times as effective so I started wearing three, then one day I did the math myself and don’tcha know, 95% of 95% of 95% is 86%! So I’m back to one mask now, underneath my motorcycle helmet.

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#286

Post by anchpop »

chinathrow wrote: post #268
calebm wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Maybe COVID has changed to be more cooperative with humanity (it's a good strategy for parasites to not kill their hosts).

How can a virus have a "strategy" when all which occurs are random mutations during replication? I wonder about this a lot.

Random mutations cause random changes to "strategy", and viruses with "strategies" that cause them to spread faster become more common

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#287

Post by sjg007 »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #19
ufo wrote: post #13

The title is misleading. It is possible that Omicron is just as severe and that the effect in the study is because a large percentage of the population had some immunity from a previous infection or vaccine. > South Africa has a quite high seroprevalence of prior infection, particularly after delta, and in some parts of South Africa up to 80 percent of people were exposed to previous infection. We don’t think it’s a…

I would suspect that most people who are were already vulnerable have already passed or built immunity if the virus is equally dangerous, resulting in a lower than equal death rate despite equivalent risk. Although... Can we never, not even once, be a little optimistic? To me, the news that we may be replacing COVID with a less severe strain is some of the best news of the year. COVID clearly isn't going away at this…

Hope is not a strategy.

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#288

Post by gruez »

algo646464 wrote: post #265
ufo wrote: post #13

The title is misleading. It is possible that Omicron is just as severe and that the effect in the study is because a large percentage of the population had some immunity from a previous infection or vaccine. > South Africa has a quite high seroprevalence of prior infection, particularly after delta, and in some parts of South Africa up to 80 percent of people were exposed to previous infection. We don’t think it’s a…

I don't think that it is misleading. The severity of a disease is relative to the current situation. For example, it could be the case that Omicron is actually less infectious than the original variant, when compared in the setting of 2020. It spreads faster today because, (i) because of preexisting immunity most cases are very mild, and so lots of people become unwitting carriers, (ii) people have gone back to norma…

> I don't think that it is misleading. The severity of a disease is relative to the current situation.

I think it is misleading. AIDS is much more survivable in "the current situation" because of various drug advances we made in the past few decades. Does that mean 2021 AIDS is "less severe" than 90s AIDS? I guess you could claim it's technically less severe, but the wording definitely suggests it's something about the virus, rather than the environment.

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#289

Post by dham »

kenjackson wrote: post #253
dham wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but Spanish Flu was really really bad. Affected everyone. Covid is not the Spanish Flu or even the Flu. The flu kills children and is indiscriminate. 80% of hospitalizations and deaths from Covid are related to weight. We should have prioritized health and Vitamin D in April 2020. At that time it was clear it was mainly affecting overweight people. Of course even almost 2 years later people still don't think that…

> 80% of hospitalizations and deaths from Covid are related to weight. Citation for this? I've never heard this at all.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/covid-cdc-study-finds-roughl...

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#290

Post by kenjackson »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #231
aantix wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you attend the game if it were 11 people? Because that's what you do every time you drive. 11 crash fatalities per 100,000 people. https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state...

That risk is an order of magnitude lower. Moreover, you're not taking that risk "...every time you drive". That risk is much lower, of course, given that most people drive more than once a year.

Correct. It is about 1 death per 100 million miles driven per the table given by the other commenter. Those are actually much better odds than I was expecting!
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